


I Watched Two People Fall in Love (And One of Them Was You)

by thepocketdragon



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26462422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepocketdragon/pseuds/thepocketdragon
Summary: Beca watches Chloe and Chicago kiss after her performance. She had hoped her song choice would change things, but having her heart broken wasn't exactly what she'd envisioned.Bechloe Angst.  Post-the stupid kiss in PP3. Forgive me. Story from Beca’s POV.Written freeform- no edits or beta.
Relationships: Chloe Beale & Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	I Watched Two People Fall in Love (And One of Them Was You)

“So, a record deal, huh?”

It was so nonchalant, the way you said it. It was as if the concept- so wildly out of left field and so unlike anything I’d aspired to- had occurred to you before.It wouldn’t surprise me. You have always claimed to know me better than I know myself.

I believed you until that night. I truly did. Now, experience has proven that you don’t know me at all.

You lifted your hair off your neck, checking in the mirror and scrunching your nose as you moved from side to side. I always like it when you wear your hair up but I knew it would be better if you didn’t. I can’t ever tear my eyes away from your neck when you do. I strode- yes, I would say that was the right word- over to your side and rested my head on your shoulder, pulling your hand away until your auburn tresses fell, tickling at my cheek. Your eyes met mine in the mirror and I let the contact linger for just one indulgent moment too long.

“Nervous?”

The answer was obvious, but not for the reason you’d probably have expected. The performance, the idea of hundreds of eyes on me, didn’t bother me as much as the song. I’d chosen it on purpose. I’d chosen it to say all of the things I wasn’t strong enough to air without music.

“A little.”

Your hand brushed down my arm as you pulled me close. I watched in the mirror as you turned your head slightly to press your lips to my forehead.

“Let me do your hair.”

The feeling of your hands on my scalp did little to quash the heavy sensation in my gut. I leaned back into you as you twisted piece after piece. You patted my shoulder and whispered “all done” against my ear but I could barely hear your for the thundering in my head.

Like every other evening we’d shared, you waited for me at the door. This time, though, you brushed the shoulder of my jacket and looked into my eyes. I felt my breath catch.

I can’t trust my memory now. When it comes to you, my head and my heart are so viciously entangled that even the most base thoughts and reminders of you are coloured by the way my pulse races and my skin prickles; the electricity of you forcing bright, burning sparks to fly at every point we’ve ever connected. If I’d let myself, I’d have kissed you then. But I wanted to wait. I wanted the music to tell you.

I thought it would be more memorable.

I suppose it was.

We cried together.

I held you close and let myself indulge by breathing in the perfume that has followed me since our eyes met over a busy courtyard all those years ago. You reached for my hand and squeezed.

And I thought you knew.

I thought you’d understood.

Now, laying here wide awake as you sleep soundly, I realise how wrong I was.

I watched you as I handed back the equipment to the sound tech. I watched you find _him_. I saw him looking and recognised the glint in his eye.

I’ve seen it before. I’d seen it in the mirror only a few hours ago. Only, that time it had been on my own face.

His eyes creased at the corners and I knew he was falling for your charm.

I couldn’t blame him, not really. It’s hard not to. I should know; I’ve been under your spell for years.

I wasn’t sure if you’d seen me watching. Someone put a drink in my hand, I have no idea who because my gaze was tunnelled on the two of you. He said something and I watched your hand reach out to rest against his chest.

That was the moment I finally clicked that what I was witnessing was a two-way deal. Unlike me, helplessly swept up alone in the storm of everything you were and are, you were conscious of how you were reeling him in. You were choosing this. You were choosing him.

My head swam with every shade of hurt, clouding my vision as tears threatened to fall from my eyes. I tried not to, though. I tried to be rational. I blamed the excitement and the alcohol and thought of how distinctly different you had been in his presence; how unlike _you._

I could see it, though. I could see the way he looked at you, his tongue unsubtly brushing against his lip as you told him a story I probably knew better than he ever would. After all, we’d shared hundreds of moments, hundreds of memories. He had only a handful.

Logically, I knew that didn’t matter.

If you’d have been a stranger, I would have named it then and there. I would have watched the way he stared, the way his eyes tracked you and the way his pupils dilated and I’d have said it.

I knew, though. I knew I was watching a man fall for you.

He made you laugh.

The sound, melodic and light, echoed through the room. Your very own song.

I had always thought that laugh was just for me.

I think that was the moment I felt my heart begin to pull apart at the seams you’d stitched into it all those years ago. 

I made my excuses and left you. I couldn’t hold it together any longer, not with the way he was staring and the way you were giving him parts of you I’d treasured and claimed, in my imagination, as my own. I knew it was selfish, but I needed to leave. I needed space to think, space to try to understand and rationalise and be the best friend you deserved. It wasn’t your fault, I knew that, but a part of me had clung onto the hopeless idea that you’d known. That we’d shared something special that, if I asked, could become something more.

It was as I got within a few steps of the elevator that you pulled him close and your lips touched.

I managed to say three or four sentences, barely paying any attention to the person speaking to me, before I was free.

I ran.

I ran and I held my breath until the hotel door slammed behind me and I collapsed against it, sobs wracking from my body in a way I couldn’t control.

The shower was laced with memories of you and I; the masochistic mixture of scalding water and echoes of a moment shared long ago. The jacket I’d worn seemed to glint at me from where I’d hung it on the back of the bathroom door. It represented a hope that had shattered in a series of innocuous moments and I couldn’t bear to look any longer. I scrunched my eyes closed and balled my fists and let out a scream. There was no sound. I wasn’t sure there would ever be sound again.

I have no music with you.

By the time you crept in, the room was dark and my breathing was as even as I could make it.

I don’t know if you knew I was awake.

You slipped into your side of the bed and said nothing.

After years of being close enough that most of our friends thought of us as one entity, the space in between us was alarmingly cold.

Deathly cold.

Only inches, but miles of cold.

The silence only served to freeze it further.

Every possible word I could have said seemed to freeze within me. The _I need you_ and the _I want you_ and the _I wish it was me_ and the _I love you_ I’d buried deep under layers of ‘dude’ and ‘awesome nerd’ and ‘you’re my best friend’ slowly crystallised, wrapped in jagged, frosty spikes slowly piercing me from the inside out.

The pain was silent. A silent agony. A silence of mourning for what could have been as you rested blissfully, peacefully, painlessly unaware of the repercussions of just one moment.

I’d watched him fall for you as I stood powerless on the sidelines.

And, as I felt the embers die as the frost you’d melted away began to return to my soul, I knew you’d fallen too.

It had only taken a moment to change everything.

I packed my things the next morning as you talked blindly, unaware of how every word only served to stab through gashes that hadn’t yet had time to heal.

You zipped your case, rolled it to the door and gave me a smile I’d always believed had meant so much more than it did.

I could have told you. I know I could. But every word I could have said had disappeared as the hours had slipped by, both of us laying either side of a cavernous expanse in a bed simultaneously too large for the lovers we could have been and too small for the strangers we were rapidly becoming.

You asked me, finally, how my evening had been.

I looked away as I thought of something to say.

“It was fine. Overwhelming.”

I saw a glint, then, or I hoped I had. A question on your lips until you blinked and it disappeared.

The Chloe I’d loved would have known. Would have asked. But the _you_ I’d seen you offer to someone else the previous evening wasn’t the you I loved. It was someone else. The someone you wanted him to see. I didn’t know if that version of you even knew I existed.

“You left early. Did something happen?”

I bit my lip as I felt hot tears prick at the back of my eyes, a lump developing in my throat.

I looked into your eyes and tried my best to say all the things I knew I couldn’t. Not out loud. Not anymore.

_Yes, something happened,_ I wanted to say.

_I watched two people fall in love._

A knock at the door pulled me from my state. I saw your expression change as you opened it.

I didn’t even need to ask who was there.

I laid back on the bed, boot-clad feet dangling over the edge, and wiped away the single tear that had managed to fall.

I heard you laugh again and I felt my heart shatter.

Scrunching my eyes shut, I saw the words I hadn’t said.

_I watched two strangers fall in love._

_One of them was you._

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I posted on Tumblr that I've recently found an old folder on my laptop which contains a silly amount of half-finished or unposted Bechloe fanfic from back in the day. I've recently found myself back in the fandom (thanks, hyperfixation!) and so I'll be posting a few things here and there once I've decided they're worthy of your eyes, minds and time.
> 
> The title and inspiration for this one shot comes from a song of the same name by Fascinating Aida (a very niche reference, granted, but it's viscerally heartbreaking).
> 
> Feedback would be very welcome, please.


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